Something is Happening. People are Drawing Lines.And We’ve Got It Covered.

Medicare for All. A Green New Deal. Higher taxes on the rich. Women rising up. Teachers marching. Workers organizing. Students striking. Common Dreams is here to cover every moment of it. But we can't do it without you. Please support our 2019 Winter Campaign today.

Support Independent Journalism. The only thing that keeps us going is support from readers like you. Every contribution makes a huge difference. DONATE

Search form

For Immediate Release

New Analysis: Federal Plan Would Hurt Yellowstone's Grizzly Bears

As Comment Period Closes on Plan to Guide Removal of Protections for Bears, Conservationists and Scientists Criticize Harmful Plan

LIVINGSTON, Mont. - The Center for Biological Diversity and seven other conservation organizations submitted comments today to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arguing that a recently proposed recovery plan for Yellowstone grizzly bears puts the animals’ population at greater risk of extinction, by allowing the removal of its protections despite lack of connectivity with other populations and ongoing threats to the bears. The comments call on the agency to maintain Endangered Species Act protections for the bears until these issues can be resolved.

“This plan would reverse nearly 30 years of hard-fought progress toward restoring Yellowstone’s magnificent grizzlies. It would put bears that have been recovering right back in intensive care,” said Louisa Willcox, a northern Rockies conservationist with the Center. “By condemning Yellowstone’s grizzlies to permanent isolation from other grizzly bears, this plan would rob the iconic bears of a secure and healthy future.”

The comment period for the recovery plan closed on today. More than 40,000 Center activists from around the country, as well as a number of preeminent scientists, submitted comments raising serious concerns that it falls short of what’s needed to recover Yellowstone’s grizzlies.

The plan locks grizzly bears out of crucial habitat they will need to compensate for the recent collapse of two out of four of Yellowstone’s key grizzly bear foods. Climate change and the introduction of nonnative species have devastated both whitebark pine and cutthroat trout, forcing bears to forage for food more closely to people, where, not surprisingly, they are coming into greater conflict and dying at unsustainably high rates. Instead of redoubling efforts to reduce bear deaths, the Fish and Wildlife Service is exacerbating the problem by paving the way for the states to allow hunting of grizzly bears.

“By turning the keys to management over to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, which are culturally hostile to large carnivores, Fish and Wildlife will recreate the very conditions that landed the grizzly bear on the endangered species list in 1975,” said Willcox.

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Something is Happening. People are Drawing Lines.
And We’ve Got It Covered.

But we can't do it without you. Please support our Winter Campaign.

Within 200 years after European settlement, grizzly bears were eliminated from 99 percent of the lands where they once lived as a result of excessive killing and habitat destruction. Without the protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act, grizzly bears would likely already be extinct even in the nation’s oldest park, Yellowstone.

Because of their large home ranges, of several hundred square miles, and their sensitivity to development, grizzly bears are considered barometers of the health of the ecosystems where they live. Where grizzlies are healthy, so are the rich array of other wildlife species — from native fish to bighorn sheep — that make the wild places where they find refuge so special.

The Center’s letter also found that measures of the status of the population are biased and unreliable. Even using federal data that does not correct for these problematic biases, the Center found that the population is declining.

“It doesn’t matter if there are 400 or 800 grizzly bears in Yellowstone — if they’re on a downhill slide, as the federal data shows, then they are headed for extinction,” said Willcox. “Unplugging their life support now is tragically wrong, and a clear betrayal of the public trust.”

Earthjustice worked with the Center for Biological Diversity to craft the detailed comments, along with many independent scientists who analyzed the plan and pointed out its significant flaws.

###

This is the world we live in. This is the world we cover.

Because of people like you, another world is possible. There are many battles to be won, but we will battle them together—all of us. Common Dreams is not your normal news site. We don't survive on clicks. We don't want advertising dollars. We want the world to be a better place. But we can't do it alone. It doesn't work that way. We need you. If you can help today—because every gift of every size matters—please do.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature - to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

Further

Because so much winning, another good ole bigot - with an actual bully pulpit - has crawled out of his cave to call for the Ku Klux Klan "to night ride again" and hang Democrats, "Republican Democrats" and "socialist-communists" with "hemp ropes to clean out D.C." The newspaper of one Goodloe Sutton has evidently long been "a cesspool of indefensible bilge." Hence, when asked about the propriety of his call, this defense of the Klan: "Well, they didn't kill but a few people." Thanks Trump.

Common Dreams brings you the news that matters.

Sign up for Newsletter

Connect With Us

Support our common dreams.

Can We Count on Your Help Today?

Common Dreams is a small nonprofit with a big mission. Every day of the week, we publish the most important breaking news & views for the progressive community. To remain an independent news source, we do not advertise, sell subscriptions or accept corporate contributions. Instead, we rely on readers like you, to provide the "people power" that fuels our work. Please help keep Common Dreams alive by making a contribution. Thank you. - Craig Brown, Co-founder